The Gay Blade

MP Jan Logie floated the idea of a Rainbow Ministry or high-level agency in 2019. Her claim is that we need representation at this level, in the same way other minorities have it to help ensure their voices are heard. It's election season, so these ideas are worth airing. On the surface it might seem like a good idea, but I’m not entirely convinced. In Auckland we have the Rainbow Advisory Panel, one of a number of Auckland Council Advisory Panels that are supposed to somehow view Council moves through an LGBTI+ lens and feed back how we might be affected. Or so I assume. Many queer people in Tāmaki Makaurau are unaware this panel exists. While I’m sure that the members of it are trying their best, the selection and appointment process seems somewhat opaque. Apparently you express interest in the role, attend a half day workshop, then get interviewed, and get appointed or not. Just who appoints and under what criteria is unclear, I couldn’t find the details on the websit...

Published in 1978, Larry Kramer's "Faggots" is still one of the Great Gay Books, and every young homo should read it. As we are so often reminded, how can we know where we are going if we don't know where we're coming from?                   'The novel does describe a certain kind of social behaviour, but it is not      recommended for lovers of Jane Austen' as one reviewer put it. The book outraged so many when it was published, gay and straight, but it continues to tell a story that resonates. It's outrageous in so many ways, hilarious, edgy still, and has a lot to say to the world of gay men today I reckon. One of my oldest friends gave it to me in 1979, when I was 18, and I still have that copy. At 18, I was too young to understand what he was saying, and I was bewildered by it then. Now I think it's a masterpiece. Kramer today can't be spoken of without thinking of his AIDS activism. He drove the founding of both the ...